Glass pool Cyberhelvetia Expo 2002

Biel, Switzerland, 2002

Just like the traditional Swiss public baths this exhibition pavilion is for people to meet and to communicate.But today there is a great variety of ways and means to communicate, unrestricted by location or language. Even communal bathing does no longer require real water. Instead one submerges headfirst into the multi-layered atmosphere of virtual reality, bathing in light and sound. Inside the Cyberhelvetia-Pavilion tradition and future, reality and virtuality, nature and technology unite creating a novel and fascinating experience. The glass pool in the center of the exhibition room replaces the real swimming pool. Various games on the surface and on the sides of the illuminated glass cube offer unusual ways of contacting the other guests. The loadbearing glass structure consistd of vertical supporting panes and horizontal accessible panes measuring 1.66 m x 2.33 m. The horizontal panes are pre-stressed by placing cables into the horizontal joints. Special screen printing was applied to the glass to serve as projection surface for the interactive virtual games on the pool.The pool is filled with virtual water to which the visitors of the exhibition, both on site and via the internet, may add fantastic life forms. The mutual interaction between people actually and virtually present and the artificial life forms creates constantly new atmospheric pictures at the surface of the pool, almost resembling a living organism.